


Not a House or Even a Tent

by filia_noctis



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, Coercion, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Past Character Death, Sexual Coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 12:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: Gandhari's POV on her marriage, and the choices she makes about her sight. It is an unhappy marriage, to say the least, so if you don't wish to read about nonconsensual proximity, this is where you stop reading, please.
Relationships: Dhritarashtra/Gandhari (Mahabharata)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	Not a House or Even a Tent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllegoriesInMediaRes (AllegoriesInMediasRes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/gifts).

> The thing is, while I don’t think Dhritarashtra and Gandhari’s relationship can be reduced to a vice/virtue binary, or a straight-up rape or Stockholm syndrome-like situation, there is obviously abuse, violence–whether directly perpetrated by him or with his tacit support– to her and her family. It is also one of the longest marriages in the epic. In my head, beyond the rage, disappointment, desperation or a bad start they can’t truly recover from, Dhritarashtra and Gandhari find each other, above all, incomprehensible. Any attempt at an honest conversation sees them struggling to communicate or empathize with each other. Perhaps the blindfold is all the more necessary for both self-preservation and loud gestures at trying to understand, from Gandhari’s part. And, I don’t think time or children improve the situation. So, while I am wondering whether you are looking for a vignette of their partnership, I’m afraid this uneasy truce is all I can offer in terms of a quiet understanding. ‘Hope that’s okay?

Gandhari fumbles for her eye drop. The bedside table. She knows. She remembers the shape of the bottle. One upon a time, the black glasses helped in hiding tears, hiding rage, hiding annoyance and fatigue and that odd bedmate, jealousy. Now, it’s just easier to not open one’s eyes, to pretend away at this affliction that she has made a virtue enough. Enough so that the heavy days don’t lead to nights of Dhritarashtra trying to amend, or worse, try weeping to apologise for something she had chanced seen that she oughtn’t have, trying to fumble his way across the wasteland of their marriage bed to her body. It gets tiresome when there are so many, and so much. And it is easier to find a seat, a pot in the kitchen, a maid on the terrace, manage the household, turn a blind eye to the things her husband continues doing, her sons continue to be endorsed in, her brother continues to twist himself into, behind the shades, behind the darkness. Most people have now forgotten that she is in fact not entirely sightless despite the praises of wifely virtue they continue to sing in her name. The glasses are easy. The glasses are safe. She peers into things and preens her way around her sunken eyes and hides the Gandhari that isn’t just a virtuous wife, (“tragically married, something about her brothers and false advertisement and starvation, in this very house, but that is so many years ago now”). She enjoys the fact that her fumbling around behind the cool darkness lets her not share her husband’s bed and chambers (“blind leading the blind, that’s how you will entrust your sahib’s wellness?” she had asked, early on. The concern for her husband’s accidental stumble meant nobody asked what Dhritarashtra had thought of it. She had caught him shrugging, resigned, tinted in blue-grey). Now, when she steps on the terrace and has a moment of panic about what would happen should she remove the glasses, try staring at the sun or even the gentle Diwali lights her granddaughter strings up with the servants, she wonders whether Dhritarashtra ever wishes he could see her face. Gandhari takes off her glasses (they stopped feeling uncomfortable in the first month, decades ago now. And Dhanraj gets her the comfortable imported kind with special glasses and what-not) and reaches for the eye drop. She wants to look at her husband’s face when he joins her for tea, as per their routine.


End file.
